PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

March 10, 2024

HINDSIGHT

“Usually I know exactly what Wolfe is doing when he’s doing it, and why.  I always know afterwards exactly what he did, and nearly always I know why.  But I’m still not dead sure, months later, that I know why he had Sally phone those guys and get them to come that day (Archie, Gambit, Batam Books, p. 65).”

Recently Diane and I took a quick road trip to visit our youngest son and his family in Virginia.  While we were gone, I managed to finish three Reader’s Digest Fiction Favorites: Playing It Safe. Good Family, and The Wishing Game.   The third of the three is an interesting story of a contest that children’s story writer Jack Masterson has created.  The prize is the only copy of his new completed Clock Island story.  What makes it especially valuable is that Masterson’s last Clock Island story was some 6 ½ years earlier.

In response to one of the contestants’ complaints about the difficulty of the games, Jack responds: “Ah, but that’s how life is.  Hindsight is twenty-twenty, they say.  We only know the right thing to do after we’ve done the wrong one.  To quote the supposedly great but mostly incomprehensible Soren Kierkegaard – ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’  Or, as all writers know, you can’t understand the beginning until you’ve read the end.  And those are all the hints you get.  Happy hunting, children (Reader’s Digest Fiction Favorites, Volume #396, 521).”

The illustration from Gambit is not an isolated instance of where Nero Wolfe asks Archie Goodwin to do something without giving him an explanation of why.  One reason that Wolfe gives for not telling Archie is that his performance will not be influenced by his knowing the purpose of what he’s about. Nevertheless, Archie must act.  The only assurance he has is that Wolfe understands.

“The Lord said to Abram, ‘Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.’ … Abram went forth as the Lord had commanded him, and Lot went with him.  Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran (Genesis 12:1,4).”  In the Book of Hebrews, we find: “By faith Abraha, when called to go to a place he would latter receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going (Hebrews 11:8).”

Hebrews defines faith in the following way: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what do not see (Hebrews 11:1).”  Motivated by his faith in Nero Wolfe and driven by his desire to get the bad guy, Archie Goodwin responded to Wolfe’s direction in Gambit and other Nero Wolfe mysteries.  Motivated by their faith in Jack Masterson and driven by their desire to win the prize, the four contestants in The Wishing Game worked to solve the cluses.  Motived by his faith in the Lord and driven by his vision of a new future, Abrahman at an advanced aged went forth from Haran.

All of us are called to make decisions for which we lack adequate understanding.  Nevertheless, we are called to make a decision about what to do.  Even making the decision not to make a decision is making a decision.  What gives us courage to make such decisions is having faith in something or someone and a goal or a vision to be achieved.  It is only in hindsight we can have some understanding of our decisions.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)